JVC XVN412S Progressive-Scan DVD Player , Silver

Comment: This dvd player was bought refurbished and i am very pleased with my choice to buy it. Inspite of a small crack on the plastic display screen, this product looks great and has been working excellent for the past few months. I highly recommend this.

Comment: Really cool looking design, easy to use and so far (1 year) has been very reliable.

Comment: This is by far the best dvd player I've owned yet. First off, from an aesthetic point of view, I love the silver color and the blue light when it is turned on. I also like that the blue light can be dimmed if needed. The reviewer above stated that this player lacks a bookmark feature. In fact it does have bookmarking. One has to program it though to do this on the setup menu.

In terms of specs for a mid-range dvd player, I am highly impressed. This model has ports for S-video, component video, coaxial audio, and even optical audio. Optical is something that I'm finding to be very hard to find in standard dvd players and that's a a real shame considering that optical gives the absolute best sound possible.

Also, I'm very glad that this player can handle any kind of cd or dvd that is made, including mp3 discs and jpg file discs. This machine will play absolutely and dvd or cd that you burn on a computer without a problem.

A few other nice touches are the progressive scan options that you can choose yourself on the remote and the fact that you can simulate surround sound on standard speakers. For those that don't yet own a high end home theater, I'm sure this feature would be appreciated. It does have an optional screensaver as well if the disc is paused for some time. As to it being paused for a long period of time, I have had this player for a long time now and not once has it faltered on me by skipping or anything. Even if I leave a disc in for a few hours, it starts right up with no hesitation when I press Play again.

Finally I want to comment on its ergonomics. This player I've found to be incredibly easy to use out of the box. I managed to learn the features with incredible ease.

I got this dvd player after months of nitpicking over what model to get as a replacement for my previous player and this one came highly recommended. It had all the connections I was after and I've never been happier with a dvd player. It's an aboslutely fantastic product.

Comment: Sub-$100 progressive scan DVD-players are a dime dozen, so the question is about the built and video qualities they produce. This set is replacing my old Toshiba SD-K740 so it is the fourth DVD-player I own.

The specks on this unit are comparable to Toshiba. Both are bare bone units that has zoom, slow, etc., but what the JVC lack is a bookmarker for scene. The exterior of the JVC is way better then the bored design of Toshiba. There is a cool illumining blue light on a clean looking front panel that can be turn off for the JVC.

Built quality both are about the same. There is no internal fan on either unit so I doubt they will last forever if you leave it on for more then 2 hours. So they will start to skip a little like the old PlayStation and the replaced Toshiba. I over used the Toshiba, in 11 months it placed over 400 DVDs and I left it on in the background sometime for over 4 hours when I do my work. Other DVD-players I have, the Panasonic DVD-recorder DMR-E65 and Playstation2 are more solidly built and both have an internal fan.

Image quality is too close to call and I do have a HDTV ready set from Panasonic for progressive scan to work. I think Toshiba is one point smoother and has better color saturation so the image jumps at you more. The JVC will get one point more for better detail or sharpness, but I slightly prefer Toshiba's image. The Panasonic DMR-E65 with progressive scan produced inferior images on all levels, but is still great to most eyes. The original Playstation2 has the worst DVD image quality I have seen. Without progressive scan it look only good on a regular analog TV set, but grainy on a HDTV set. Audio quality is normal; I use a digital out to a Sony ES receiver. Denon's DVD players have cleaner sound circuit, but cost more.

This unit can play DVD-r, DVD+R, jpg and mp3. If you want to play SACD or DivX, step up to the next model. This is a great product overall on value and qualities.